


A Series of Timelines

by Gemfyre



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Cyborgs, Drabbles, Gen, time-travel, unfinished ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemfyre/pseuds/Gemfyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a series of scenes and drabbles set in the Terminator universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Series of Timelines

**Author's Note:**

> I am terrible at actually finishing things. But I have plenty of ideas.
> 
> So I bring you a series of un-beta'd stuff I've written for this universe. Being a timey-wimey ball, anything is possible really.

**Kyle survives the events of The Terminator**

Sarah felt all the strength go out of her body as she sprawled against the wall she bad been backed up against, and was surprised to find enough energy to push the endo forearm away from her with alarming force. It was proof that everything that had happened wasn’t just some bad dream. Then, as if to confirm the reality of it all, her thigh finally registered the piece of shrapnel embedded in it and pain shot up her leg. She squealed at the pain and immediately reached for the offending piece of metal.  
“Sarah!” Now the pain was briefly replaced by relief. Kyle had only been knocked out, not killed.  
“Over here!!” She could hear crashing sounds as he stumbled toward her, then appeared between two vats. It was like seeing an angel. “My leg!” she gasped, once again moving to pull out the shrapnel. Kyle made it over to her quickly.  
“No, leave it alone. Worst thing you can do is pull it out.”  
“What?”  
“It might have severed something, and if that’s the case it’s stopping you from bleeding to death.”  
“Oh God it hurts.” She leaned back and closed her eyes and tried to blot out the burning in her lower body.  
“We’re gonna need to treat it, but we can’t stay here.” She wished that they could just call an ambulance she’d seen soon be pumped full of painkillers, but she knew that was never going to be the case again.  
“This place will be crawling with cops any minute now.” Kyle helped her up and they made their way out of the factory as quickly as they could, which wasn’t fast but was still faster than Sarah imagined she could have moved considering the circumstances. Police response must have been slow, they made it to the door just as the howl of sirens began to fill the air.

They found an unlocked car and Kyle hotwired it and they drove. Nowhere in particular, just staying on the move. Although the worst of it was over, she knew she was in big trouble. She mentally listed all the crimes she and Kyle had committed trying to save themselves. Illegal firearms, explosives, stealing cars, the shootout at Tech Noir, Kyle’s rant at the police station, the fact that the mysterious phone book killer that had beset the local Sarah Connors would disappear off the face of the earth without a clue to lead to his identity. She had nothing left, only the clothes she wore, she’d even lost her wallet somewhere along the way.  
“Archers!” She suddenly blurted. Now it was Kyle’s turn to look at her strangely.  
“What?”  
“The Archers, I babysit for their kids sometimes. Rick Archer always comes in to work for chilli fries, he told me they were heading to Florida for a few weeks, the house will be empty. Hell, I even know where they keep the spare key. We could hunker down there for a bit, get cleaned up. Rest.” Kyle nodded thoughtfully, impressed.  
“Good thinking. How do I get there?”  
“Left at the next lights.”

They parked the stolen car in the garage so it couldn’t be seen from the street. Sarah felt a little guilty about taking advantage of somebody else’s house, but then she remembered the big picture and she was sure the Archers would understand. Then she was torn between leaving a note of explanation and apology or just going all out and making it look like a break-in. They made a bee-line for the bathroom, Sarah leaning heavily on Kyle and limping. She sat down carefully on the toilet seat and told Kyle to rummage through the cupboards. Having three kids they were well equipped. Antiseptic, bandages, painkillers, alka-seltzer. Kyle left briefly and returned with two glasses of water and they downed their pills of choice. Then he unwrapped a bandage and tied it tightly around her leg.  
“Ow! What are you doing?”  
“It’s gonna have to come out.”  
“But you said…”  
“Considering our circumstances, it can’t stay there. At least I can stem the blood flow now and we can find out how bad it is.” He tied off another bandage below the wound.  
“I’ve got pins and needles.”  
“Good. You might wanna close your eyes.” She did as she was told and held her breath as Kyle slowly but steadily removed the piece of metal lodged in her thigh. It was relatively smooth and had gone in about two inches. To his relief blood didn’t spurt out. Sarah stifled a scream, not wanting to draw any attention from neighbours. “It’s okay, it’s not arterial. Just need to keep it clean and make sure it heals up nicely.” She stared at him, amazed. Then managed a smile.  
“Thanks.”  
“Hey, it really is us against the world now. You’re gonna have to ditch those pants before we can dress that wound properly. Will they have clothes we can take?” Sarah couldn’t help giggling as she replied, “Sure.” Kyle looked at her strangely. “What?”  
“Oh, nothing.” She said, carefully standing and removing her battered jeans. “Hey, are YOU okay?” Kyle shrugged, “I’ve been worse. Anyway, that seltzer’s starting to kick in. Now I can do this with a clear head.”  
“Well, that’s a relief.”  
“You had enough painkillers?” He retrieved a bottle of betadine and some gauze, “This is really gonna sting.”

After they had treated their injuries, they showered, raided the kitchen for a bite to eat then retired to what Sarah informed him was a guest room. She explained that she’d feel bad about using the master bedroom. She fell onto the bed and sighed.  
“Do we have enough time to sleep?” Kyle looked around the room and joined her.  
“Nobody knows we’re here. We’ll sleep until we wake up then move on, ditch the car.”  
“Will there be more of those terminators?” There was a pause before Kyle replied,  
“I don’t know.”  
They slept in each others arms.

______________________________________________________________________

**Juanita Salceda**

_Juanita is actually a canon character, but she just appears as a young girl in Terminator 2_

Juanita Salceda was a Mexican beauty, black hair and dark eyes, feisty and sharply intelligent. Her daddy, Enrique often wondered if she would have been better off going to school like most girls, he would have been amused by the broken hearts of the boys who courted her. But it was not to be, the Salcedas had decided on a life away from the law and society. Instead of gossiping and discussing outfits for the prom, Juanita was learning how to fly a helicopter and handle an AK-47.

John just liked her because she understood. She stood and crossed the kitchen to him, arms outstretched.  
“John!! I thought I would never see you again.” She hugged him tight.

Juanita was perhaps the only person John could have called a friend during his childhood. He and his mother had first come to live with the Salcedas when John was 5 years old. Juanita had been 7 at the time. Even though he had been sworn to secrecy by Sarah, he couldn’t help but tell Juanita the wild stories his mother told. At least he had picked the right person to tell. You didn’t keep secrets from Juanita, you didn’t need to, secrets always ended with her. The two quickly became friends. They would discuss time travel and the war and killer robots like any children of their age, but they would do it while taking turns shooting at cans with an old long-barrelled revolver that belonged to Juanita. Most people from the normal world would see their play as terribly dangerous, and perhaps even sick. But John and Juanita had been taught how to handle guns since they were toddlers. John didn’t have his own gun, but Juanita was charged with the care of the revolver, and she cared for it well, cleaning it and handling it safely. If any 8 year old was to handle a gun, better it be her than some city kid without a clue. When they weren’t taking pot shots at tin cans they would relax in the small orchard or take a harvest from the vegetable garden or collect eggs from the chickens that roamed the camp.

Then one night they left. Sarah had a new task in mind and ended up at Pescadero. John was put into the foster system.

When they returned 2 years later, Juanita was overjoyed to see her friend again. Although Sarah planned to be in and out quickly, and put John on weapons duty, he managed to get away for a few minutes under the guise of going to take a pee. He found her in the vegetable garden and they hid behind one of the trailers to talk briefly. He had to tell someone.  
“Juanita! It’s true! It’s all true! Mom was right.” His voice was a mixture of excitement and fear.  
“I never thought you were lying…”  
“No, I just thought mom was just spinning wild stories for a while there. But that guy is one of them!”  
“Well he’s obviously not your uncle. Do you even HAVE an uncle?”  
The words spilled out, he didn’t have much time to explain, “He’s a cyborg, from the future. The same one that tried to kill mom, or at least, the same model. But apparently this one has been reprogrammed by future me to protect me now.” John paused. Juanita was staring at him, wide eyed and fascinated. “There’s another one here too. That’s why he’s here. Now Skynet’s trying to kill me in the past to win in the future.” He shivered. “It’s… this liquid metal thing. It can imitate people. It’s fucking terrifying.” He took her hands and held onto them, needing the contact. “We shouldn’t have come here. It’ll follow us. You guys need to get out of here. I…I’m sorry.” She hugged him. She hadn’t shown a hint of doubt, as usual. She didn’t think he was crazy, and she wouldn’t tell his secret. She would just be there when he needed her.  
“I’ll make sure Daddy has us on the road a couple hours after you leave. I’ll start packing stuff now. We’ll be okay.” She pulled away from him. “You better go back to what you were doing before your mom finds out. Stay safe John.” John laughed bitterly.  
“I have to stay safe. Looks like the world really DOES depend on me now.” He sighed, the weight almost too much. Juanita slapped him on the shoulder as we headed back around the trailer to the weapons pit. “Best of luck.” She whispered as she watched him leave.

**

And now he was back again. A good twenty years later. She recognised him right away and accepted him with open arms. She brewed tea and demanded that he sit down and tell her everything that had happened. And he did. He told her about how they had destroyed Cyberdyne, the T-1000 and the T-800 once again, and then mistakenly believed that the future would be okay. How it all went wrong one day when he just thought things were fully settling down. About Cameron and Cromartie and John Henry and Derek and the Turk and Catherine Weaver and ZeiraCorp. About leaping through time once more to discover a future where he didn’t exist… yet.  
“I wish I could have been there.” She murmured.  
“No, it would have been way too dangerous.”  
“Dangerous? Isn’t everything going to be dangerous soon anyway? It’s not like I can’t look after myself.” John couldn’t help but smile.  
“It’s not you I’d be so worried about, more your family. Look, I hear these days you make a living designing and hosting websites.” It was true. She lived in a small cottage but also owned a heavily air-conditioned co-location where a rack of servers hummed, ready to dispense their information into cyberspace. “This chess game across time isn’t near ending yet.”

The brief foray into the future had given John an opportunity to create a resistance before the war even began. He’d sent back (with Catherine’s help) a series of non-combat Terminators, with their termination directive thoroughly disabled and with only one purpose – to transport information across time. Now he was back in the ‘present’, John needed to seek out these information sources and get that information into cyberspace for anyone who cared to look to see. Among the information were snippets from Resistance Fighters of the future who existed here and now, as children and teenagers. Snippets only their future selves could know. The intention was to bring a few good bets into the fray, people who would look at this information and believe it to be true. People who would seek out John Connor and join him before Skynet could make it’s first attack.

________________________________________________________________________________

**Checkmate**

“You said yourself. Half the reason Jessie and Riley went back is because they just needed a rest. I need a rest John! We all do.”  
“So what Ali? Everyone should just become refuges in the past? Skynet’s not the only issue back then. I’d hate to think what might happen if everyone here suddenly ends up there. But we know it’s safe to send back a few, put down our chess pieces in strategic locations.” John sat down on a trunk, the idea blossoming. “If we sent back people and bots. People can join together and create a resistance before Skynet is even born. Bots can carry information and provide protection. I mean, these bots I’ve built don’t have the terminate command, they’d be safe. I love her, I really do, but Mom is wrong. We can’t keep fragmenting because so no-one leads a terminator to anybody else. Things only work when people work together. If we have a front of humans and bots in the past, AND here, Skynet doesn’t stand a chance.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

**A Pair of Guardians**

They were gone. There was nothing she could do to get him back. Sarah inhaled and let out a shaky breath, holding back tears. She turned towards Ellison but a familiar blue sparking commenced and she turned back to where John and Catherine had disappeared, expecting to see them back again. No. Instead two young men crouched neatly in the sphere of displaced time. They stood up and regarded Sarah and Ellison. The one on the right spoke first.  
“Sarah Connor? James Ellison?” Sarah pulled out her gun and levelled it at them. This didn’t feel like Skynet’s MO. Sure, it may well have sent two terminators at once, one to finish her off and one to kill James, but it would have sent identical models. These two young men looked different. But they had certainly arrived painlessly, like machines would.  
“You’re metal aren’t you?”  
“Yes. John Connor sent us.” She didn’t put the gun down.  
“How do I know I can trust you?”  
“You’re still alive. Besides, you’ll never trust us whatever I say.” Sarah’s lips curled in a smirk. The machine before her was right. She lowered the pistol. “We are here because John still has work to do in the future. He has been there 8 years now. He has been capturing and reprogramming terminators. Recently the Resistance was able to take down one of Skynet’s time displacement complexes and John sent us back to now. I am here to stay with you and act as bodyguard.” To Sarah’s surprise the other then spoke.  
“I am here to watch from a distance. I have been instructed to stay under the radar and ensure I know where you are at all times. John is aware that you will now take other names and probably change your identity. He does intend to return eventually, and he intends to place himself in the right position of the timeline when he does so. He knows how to contact me, and once he does, I am to lead him to you.” 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

**A Very Important Photograph**

Something fluttered out of the coat pocket and landed on the ground. Kyle picked it up and gazed at the mysterious woman in the photograph. She was sitting in a Jeep with a German Shepard at her side, an eerie, bittersweet look on her face.  
“Who’s that?” He asked John. John turned to see what he was looking at. So, this was how it would happen this time. He stepped over to Kyle and looked down at the familiar Polaroid.  
“That’s my mom.”  
“Wow. You must have given her hell.” He said jokingly. John desperately wanted to say, she knew, but kept his mouth shut. “She’s kinda cute.” Kyle commented, handing the photo back to John. He didn’t move to take it.  
“Nah, you keep it. Maybe it’ll bring you luck.” Kyle may have thought what he said was just a boyish quip, but John knew better. Kyle wanted to have that photograph on him, to study the woman in the Jeep, and, in time, fall in love with her as he had to.  
“You sure?”  
“Yeah. If I ever want to look at it I can ask you. So don’t lose it.” He grinned at this peer who would one day become his father. Kyle smiled back and pocketed the photo. And destiny rolled on down its tracks.

__________________________________________________________________________________

**Practise**

John Connor carried a screwdriver with him briefly, before being equipped with a more appropriate Leatherman tool. It was a gift from his mother, not for a birthday or any special occasion, gifts were given when necessary, and this was one tool that would come in handy. The tool sported two sharp knives, one serrated and one straight, both with pointed tips. It had a long necked Phillips head and a flathead screwdriver, a bright LED light which was positioned to shine directly on the work area and the main tool was a strong pair of pliers. Each tool flipped in and out of the handle smoothly and quickly, a feature that Sarah ensured, always the pragmatist.

He practised taking it from his pocket and cycling through the tools. He practised slicing with precision through orange skins revealing the white pith below. At a Mexican market he had discovered pig heads for sale and bought 2, slicing into the scalp, getting used to the feel of skin parting and hard scalp unyielding below. Practising chip removal posed more of a challenge. He started with plain jam jars and perfected popping the lids off with the flathead screwdriver. Putting something hot in the jar and then placing it in the freezer created a satisfying vacuum to work against, but it still wasn’t quite right.


End file.
